


A Pyre for the World

by SylvanWitch



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode Tag for XIII, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:21:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3450314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He had chosen the name Flint because that was what he was now:  One-half of the formula for fire.  Memories of Thomas were the steel, and by god, he was going to build a pyre for the world and burn it down.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pyre for the World

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of ["A Pyre for the World"](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/104280) by Akila_Kwok. 



> There are heavy spoilers for "XIII" here, so if you haven't seen it, proceed at your own risk.

He had chosen the name Flint because that was what he was now:  One-half of the formula for fire.  Memories of Thomas were the steel, and by god, he was going to build a pyre for the world and burn it down.

 

Miranda had never quite understood him, though she professed to be an expert in his moods.  The truth was, James never cared for rumor or innuendo, not for his own sake and not even if it caused the loss of his commission.

 

The Admiral’s condemnation had been a personal blow, but James hadn’t come near to shaking apart in front of that bastard Hamilton because he was ashamed.

 

How could he ever have been ashamed of loving Thomas? 

 

He had shaken in anger, in a conflagration of feeling that annihilated all reason.  In that moment, he had wanted to tear Hamilton’s face from his skull and feed him his own judgment—the narrow lips, the sneering wrinkles around his eyes.

 

And he had wanted to cry out against the Admiral’s expression, the way it obliterated all the respect James had had for him.  All the love. 

 

Flint hadn’t come to Nassau to create a pirate democracy.  He hadn’t run to the heat of the Bahamas so he could burn in shame.

 

He hadn’t even come to build a memorial to his love, manifesting Thomas’ vision as a final monument of the great man who’d died trying to build it himself.

 

 

Captain James Flint had come to Nassau to take it from the smug hypocrites who had driven Thomas to his death and then use his power to set the Empire aflame.

 

“Aren’t you tired of this sad dance?” he had asked Miranda once, after they’d undertaken the painful charade of lovemaking that satisfied neither of them.

 

It was deep evening, and they were sharing a fire, reading fitfully but mostly staring in different directions, eyes fixed, as always, on disparate futures.

 

Miranda had her hair down and was robed in a simple cotton coat.  She looked fragile and old, and the satisfaction that gave him stabbed him in his stony heart.

 

How could he hate the only one left who had loved Thomas too?

 

He had tried to mitigate the tenor of his question, then, but her lips had already been twisting into the bitter, knowing smile.

 

She too hated him for reminding her of what she’d lost.  She too loved him for what he carried with him of Thomas.

 

They were trapped in an eternal embrace that robbed them of all peace and all comfort.

 

Now and again, some handsome sailor caught his eye, but it was only the surface beauty he admired.  James missed the breadth of a man’s shoulders blocking out the light of a room, missed the weight of a man against him and the roughness of stubble dragging along his jaw and neck.  He missed the scent of a man when he was aroused, the strength in hands gripping his hips, his thighs.

 

But whenever the touch hunger became too much, he need only remember Thomas, and James found again the strength to deny what he was missing. 

 

How could any man ever match what Thomas had been to him?

 

How could anyone, even Miranda herself, know what Thomas had given him?

 

“You’re far away across the sea again, aren’t you?” Thomas had said to him once, drawing James back to the room they were in, to the rumpled bed, the still-damp sheets, the salt tang on the air in the wake of their lovemaking.

 

“I was thinking of you,” James admitted, still shy about speaking his love aloud.

 

 “Good things, I hope.”

 

“How can there be any but?” he’d replied, coming as close as he could to saying what was in his deepest heart.

 

Thomas’ smile had robbed James of breath, driven him up onto his knees beside him, suddenly terrified that anything so sacred be shown in the bare light of grey dawn.

 

“I love you,” he’d blurted, and that smile had grown warmer still, until James was sure it was a beacon to betray their love to the world.  “I love you,” he repeated, feeling as though he’d lost his footing on the ratlines and was plunging a hundred feet into the blue, blue sea.

 

Thomas had caught him in a hard embrace, rolled him under, covered his mouth and filled it with his own hot breath, drowning him in the overwhelming feeling that he could be content to die thus if it meant never leaving Thomas’ arms.

 

James had not been a man given to the softer sentiments, nor was this a soft feeling or a weak one.  Every touch strengthened his resolve to see their plan through to the very end, to build in Nassau a society worthy of Thomas’ rule.

 

Every kiss assured him that they could not be wrong.  Nothing this pure could come to dust, he had thought.

Now, with the bitter ashes of hope on his tongue, Captain Flint stared at the fort on the heights above Nassau and invoked his only purpose:

 

“Fire.”

 


End file.
